State Women's Clinic in Szczecin
The Provincial Women's Clinic of the Province of Pomerania, Stettin , in short: Landesfrauenklinik Stettin (LFK Stettin), was a clinic and polyclinic for gynecology and obstetrics in Stettin that existed from 1931 to 1945 . It also served as a training center for Pomeranian midwives and for midwives for Germans abroad.
prehistory
In 1931, the Szczecin State Women's Clinic replaced the outdated and more modestly furnished provincial midwifery training institute and women's clinic on Karkutschstrasse in downtown Szczecin. This was only rebuilt in 1894 at the instigation of the secret medical council and director Ernst Bauer , after the building of the original midwifery training institute on Elisabethstrasse had become too narrow and no longer able to cope with modern requirements. Bauer had been appointed director of the midwifery school in October 1880. The first midwifery school in Szczecin was opened in 1803 and designed for 24 students.
The Provincial Midwifery Training Institute and Women's Clinic on Karkutschstrasse had been headed by the gynecologist Siegfried Stephan since 1922 , after Bauer retired for reasons of age after 42 years of service. When Stephan took over her management, the clinic was again short of space. The reasons for this were the rising annual birth rate due to the population growth, the growing importance of gynecology and the associated increased use of the clinic by gynecological patients and, last but not least, the doubling of the training period for midwives introduced in 1922 from nine to 18 months.
Building and clinic operations
The Landesfrauenklinik Stettin was founded between 1929 and 1931 by decision of the Provincial Parliament of the Provincial Association of Pomerania with a financial investment of 4.3 million Reichsmarks on a 26,500 square meter property in a quiet suburb of Stettin (Stettin 7, Roonstraße 9-11, southeast corner of Quistorppark and of the Westendsee) built in colored clinker construction.
The clinic started operations on October 12, 1931. The well thought-out clinic facility was considered to be architecturally exemplary in clinic construction. Also because of the advanced medical and communication technology used, the LFK received international attention in medical circles. It had hospital beds for 230 patients, including 48 beds for so-called 'domestic pregnant women', and 114 beds for babies.
The facility consisted of a U-shaped seven-storey clinic wing (basement, basement, ground floor, four upper floors) and additional administrative buildings, residential buildings for the medical profession and accommodation for other employees. Medical patient care took place on the ground floor and on the first three of the four upper floors. These floors were equipped with state-of-the-art communication and medical technology. The clinic rooms and corridors had linoleum floors. Three elevators were available for the transport of people and goods. A total of six operating and delivery rooms were spread over three floors. The windows of these rooms faced north. The service rooms and other functional rooms, such as the sanitary facilities, the bathrooms and the utility rooms, also faced north. The fourth floor was developed as a dormitory for midwives and for doctors in training. An amphitheater-style lecture hall with 140 seats was available on the ground floor for teaching the midwives and the nursing staff to be trained. This lecture hall was also used for scientific conferences and meetings of the Scientific Association of Szczecin Doctors . The basement housed workshops, laboratories, a pharmacy and canteens for employees and pregnant women.
The clinic had its own X-ray department and rooms for treatment with high-frequency electrical radiation, for oxygen and carbon dioxide treatment, for underwater light therapy in electrically heated baths and for diathermy and sun therapy. Completely new for physical therapy was a sand bath, in which a thermal treatment with warmed-up dune sand from the Baltic Sea beach could be carried out.
In 1934 and 1935, the LFK Stettin recorded 2,125 and 2,477 births, respectively. In the following years the number of deliveries performed there rose to over 4,000. The number of gynecological patients rose from 576 in 1933 to 1,030 in 1936, the number of gynecological operated cases from 347 to 841.
The director of the LFK was Prof. Siegfried Stephan, who had a decisive influence on its construction as well as its medical facilities. The medical staff subordinate to him comprised an average of eight to ten doctors (senior physician, ward physicians, volunteers, assigned Reichswehr physicians and five medical interns).
Soon after its completion, the LFK Stettin was nicknamed 'Storchenburg' by the citizens of Szczecin.
The clinic ended with the evacuation towards the end of the Second World War in spring 1945.
Reuse
The LFK Stettin building was used as a hospital after its evacuation in the spring of 1945 , initially occupied after the invasion of the Red Army , but then temporarily released as a general hospital for the civilian population in May 1945. On August 14, 1945 the clinic was taken over by the mobile surgical field hospital of the Polish military .
The clinic is currently used as a Polish military hospital ("109 Szpital Wojskowy z Przychodnią"), which is also open to the civilian population and to which, among other things, a women's clinic is attached.
literature
- Günter Köhler: The history of the state women's clinic in Stettin. In: Stettiner Bürgerbrief. No. 24, 1998, ISSN 1619-6201 , pp. 40-52.
- Siegfried Stephan: The State Women's Clinic in Stettin. In: Monthly for Obstetrics and Gynecology. 108, pp. 47-56 (1938).
Web links
- Obstetrical and gynecological collection from the University of Greifswald.
- Women's clinics in Stettin and Königsberg.
- Official website of the Military Hospital in Szczecin (Polish)
Footnotes
- ↑ Behm, “Report on the achievements of the royal. Midwifery Institute in Stettin during the years 1834-1859 ”, monthly for obstetrics and women's diseases , 17th volume (Berlin 1861), volume V, p. 302 ff.
Coordinates: 53 ° 26 ′ 35 " N , 14 ° 32 ′ 27.3" E